By Roxanne ReidIf you’ve never been to the Sossusvlei area in southwestern Namibia, you really need to make a plan. We’ve been four times in the past 20 years and it still knocks our socks off. Each time we try to do something a little different and this time it was climbing the dunes of Sossusvlei.

We stayed at Little Kulala lodge, which lies in awilderness reserve near the tall red dunes and white clay pans of Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei. Out at daybreak, we watched hot-air balloons inflating to take their basketsful of people into the sky to see the dunes from above. We’d been ballooning on our previous visit to Sossusvlei and it had been one of our all-time best experiences, well worth the hefty price tag. This time we chose a guided tour of the dunes and pans, hoping to learn a little more about them and the creatures that live there.

Ready for take-off just before sunrise

‘Here in this part of the Namib-Naukluft Park some of the dunes are 80 million years old. Others are youngsters, just 5 to 10 million years old,’ said our guide, Athan Gawiseb. They’re made up of 90-95% quartz, as well as feldspar, mica and magnetite. The red colour of the dunes comes from iron oxide, which ‘rusts’ over time.

A view from the air

Sossusvlei is a hyper-arid area. Rainfall can be as low as 20mm and evaporation as high as 3500mm a year – a worryingly negative balance. Yet there’s green vegetation in the plains between the dunes. ‘This is thanks to the coastal fog that rolls in from the Atlantic Ocean just 55km to the west,’ he explained. Most plants and animals that survive here depend on this mingy source of moisture to survive.

For instance, the ‘head standing’ toktokkie beetles of the Namib put their bums in the air; the fog condenses on their bodies and flows down to their mouths. ‘Fog basking’ is what scientists call this oddly ingenious behaviour.

Dune 45

Dune after dune swept by in the early morning light, long sinuous ridges that appeared immovable although they do shift in the wind. The Sossusvlei dunes are said be to among the highest in the world, measuring 200-300m from base to crest. At the famous Dune 45 we stopped to take photos and to learn that it’s a star dune, created by multi-directional winds typical of this area. Many tourists were snaking up the dune slope, some already celebrating on the crest.

As we got back into the vehicle, I breathed a quiet sigh of relief that no one was expecting me to climb to the top. Then Athan broke the news that we were going to climb the 320m-high Big Daddy dune instead. I flinched. I was unfit. I was still recovering from a lung infection. It wasn’t going to happen.

Climbing Big DaddyAt first the pace was just right for me because we focused more on tracks in the sand than on entering the Guinness Book of Records for the fastest climb to the top.

We saw the tracks of gerbils – nocturnal rodents whose long back legs make them look like mouse-sized kangaroos.We saw tiny parallel sets of dots that announced a fog-basking beetle had tip-toed over the sand. And we saw the tracks of the Namib dune ant, which can tolerate body temperature extremes from 10-55o C in short bursts. ‘It has long legs to keep its body 5mm off the ground, where it’s 10-14 degrees cooler than on the sand surface,’ Athan said.

Tracks in the sand

Someone asked if walking on the dunes didn’t damage them in some way. ‘No,’ replied Athan, ‘because the wind will wipe away all those footsteps by tomorrow.’ (We went back to Dune 45 – the dune climbers’ favourite – just before sunset the following day and discovered he’d been right: there was no trace of the hundreds of tracks from the morning.)

Climbing Big Daddy

Big Daddy's name gives a clue that it's no pushover. So, inescapably, the serious trudging began. As we got higher, it became steeper. I slogged along, out of breath, trying to stand in the footsteps of the person in front of me, where the sand was a bit compacted and supposedly easier to walk on. But I have short legs and the person in front’s stride was longer than mine, so it wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. Frequent stops to admire the view (translation: catch my breath) and we were finally near the top, with Dead Vlei laid bare below us. Dead VleiFor the first time since starting the climb I was glad I was the straggler. As the others surged forward to explore further and take photographs, I could plant myself in the sand, be present in the moment and soak up the view in silence. The dunes formed a three-sided amphitheatre above the white clay pan where the main actors (apart from scurrying humans) were dead camel thorn trees stretching up like bleached skeletons.

Dead Vlei

Ghostly camel thorns at Dead Vlei

Despite the dead trees and the name Dead Vlei there was some life in the form of Salsola hummocks and clumps of !Nara plants. ‘You can see that the !Nara have no leaves for photosynthesis,’ Athan pointed out, ‘so photosynthesis happens through the stems and thorns.’ They’re resourceful, these desert-adapted little plants.

At the bottom of Sesriem Canyon

Sesriem CanyonBig Daddy conquered, climbers refueled by picnic snacks at Sossusvlei, we set off to explore the Sesriem Canyon. This 3km-long canyon was carved out by the Tsauchab River and parts of it are 65 million years old. The midday heat was a furnace so it was a relief when the path led us into the canyon, the walls narrowed above us and we found blissful shade.

Sesriem Canyon

Still energetic, still smiling a mile a minute, Athan shared snippets about the geology of the canyon, the baboons and leopards that live here and drink from the pool at the bottom. But my mind was back on Big Daddy, enjoying again that hushed moment looking down on Dead Vlei, drinking in a sight that probably hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years.

Note: I was a guest of Wilderness Safaris Little Kulala for two nights, but had free rein to write what I chose. I paid for all travel costs.

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I'm an independent travel writer and book editor with a passion for Africa - anything from African travel, people, safari and wildlife to adventure, heritage, road-tripping and slow travel.Since 2015, travel buddy and husband Keith has been the primary photographer for this blog.We're happiest in the middle of nowhere, meeting the locals, trying something new, or simply watching the grass grow.In this blog you can discover new places to go, revisit places you've loved, or take a virtual tour of destinations you only dream about.

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